


I'd Fall At Your Feet

by redleather



Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: Gen, Hero Worship, M/M, canon typical reference to drug use, mickey/rocker, poor exasperated managers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/pseuds/redleather
Summary: A boy sneaks in to Johnny Quid and the Quidlickers. He thought he knew hero worship, but then he met Mickey.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bakcheia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakcheia/gifts).



When he was seventeen and looking every bloody inch of it, he somehow, God knows how, blagged his way into the club along with his mate Tim. Tim's cousin was reading English in Durham Univeristy and he'd borrowed his student card for a fee. Tim's cousin was a smug twat named Crispin, who had 'ideas' about ale, facial hair and music which he found headwrecking, but if squinted, turned your head sideways and shaved him, he kind of looked a bit like him.

It didn't really matter, it seemed to work on the bouncers, and that was the important bit, because that night he absolutely had to get in because Johnny Quid and the Quidlickers were playing and he had to be there. Tim was talking about the band as if he knew them personally which vaguely annoyed him as this had been his idea and neither of them and had ever been before.

Later he would remember that Tim would always have a habit of rattling off dry facts about anything when he wanted to seem like he was into whatever they were up to, but actually wasn't. Tim just wanted to be there and seem cool. Tim was very boring he would enduringly realise.

They got in, they drank too many pints yet not enough, wedged and shoved and pushed their way to the front, and there he was basking in the glory and spittle of Johnny Quid. He sang every song along with them and never tore his eyes from the main man himself.

He waited outside the club at the side door despite Tim's protestations but neither Johnny nor the rest of the Quidlickers appeared. He did that several nights over the next year, dutifully waiting, until one evening the bouncer round the side door touched his finger to his earpiece, flicked a curious eye in his direction and pulled back the velvet rope for him.

"Upstairs, door on the right. Someone wants to meet you."

He grinned like an idiot, unsure of who that someone was but daring to hope. He was shown in a door and there was Johnny Quid, shirtless but wearing a fur coat and sunglasses in the dark of the green room.

"There he is, there's my greatest fan!"

The rest of the band, groupies and onlookers stopped their partying to run an eye over this obviously young addition to the party that Johnny was making such a fuss about.

In the middle of this whirlwind of attention from his supposed idol, that was when he first laid eyes on Mickey. He was striking looking for sure, but it was more that he had a face on him like thunder that drew everyone's eye.

"Ah," said Johnny, "I see you've spotted dear old Dad over there. That's one of my managers, Mickey. He's keeping an eye on the product"

With his arm slung conspiratorially over his shoulder, Johnny sipped his beer and led them to a piano in the corner. They talked for a solid two hours about life, music and everything, all the while Johnny played surprisingly beautifully on the piano and got drunker and drunker. Then the Colombian marching powder was passed around.

Johnny was fixing up a line for himself and he caught his eye.

"I wouldn't do any of this stuff. I'm a very naughty boy, and you shouldn't do what Johnny Don't does.”

The elusive Mickey moved in at this point and suddenly there was a very solid presence right at his back.

"Johnny I swear to God if you give the kid anything, I don't care about Lenny, I don't care how much Roman loves you or how much money you make us, I will kick your ass."

American, he realised. Mickey had enunciated his last three words slowly and deliberately. Johnny hadn't offered him anything, nor did he after that point,  but he made a hilarious show of being told off like a school boy.

He found himself wanting to explain himself to Mickey, who was standing very close to him and smelled very good.

"I was just..."

"This young man, Mickey, is a very talented and promising musician. You should listen to his stuff"

His mouth fell open, Johnny grinned at him.

"Oh yeah," said Mickey, "drop in your demo and I'll listen to it"

He didn't actually sound that enthused. A burning desire to impress the man welled in his chest.

"Actually," he said, pulling a CD from inside his jacket "I have it here if you wanna take it"

Mickey looked over to Johnny.

"Is this kid for real?" he asked Johnny.

Johnny smiled like a proud Papa and nodded.

"Hmm," said Mickey, and he took the CD from him. "Alright then, I'll listen"

Mickey walked clean out of the room, still reading the details on the back of the demo. He watched him go like watching the sun go down.

"You wanna watch those gooey eyes you're giving him, he might get ideas."

"What?" he said, realising he hadn't heard a word out of Johnny's mouth.

Johnny grinned again.

"Oh I was just saying he will actually listen to it"

"Fuck! Really. Fuck. Thank you"

"Someone did that for me once, I always feel like I should pass it on."

"Fuck really, is that how you got your break?"

"No actually, my Dear Old Step-Dad, real one this time, not Mickey... Anyway, my Dad Lenny practically owns this place and every scrap of special sauce running through it so Roman and Mickey didn't really have a choice. Good thing I actually am a good musician though. That would have been awkward."

Johnny was making faces like he was joking but his soul looked like it had been scraped out from behind his eyelids. He didn't know how to respond, but then Johnny laughed.

"Come back tomorrow, during the day. I'll talk to Mickey"

"You haven't even heard my stuff, you don't know if it's good."

"Yeah, but I have a feeling about you. Just be here"

Johnny went back to tinkling the ivories, and nobody got much more sense out of him that night.

 

~*~

 

Paul the Quidlicker drummer, reminisced once that that night was a passing of the torch and they hadn't even realised. Johnny's performances were a lot more erratic after that. Sometimes he was barely able to make it through the night and the crowd booed. He stopped caring if anyone saw him smoking the pipe. He stopped caring altogether.

Then one fateful night as he waited for the Quidlickers to go onstage, Roman and Mickey had a bouncer pull him from the crowd and bring him upstairs to the studio.

Roman was on the phone, still trying to locate Johnny from the sound of things. 

"We can't find Johnny, you wouldn't happen to know  where he is by any fucking chance,” asked Mickey, high strung as a bow.

“Eh, no I don't, sorry” he replied

Roman at this point was still on the phone, waiting for a response for someone, but had taken to pacing. Mickey was pinching the bridge of his nose with both hands. Roman tapped him as he based by his chair and a look passed between them.

“Okay, we're here then,” said Mickey. He turned his gaze full force on him while Roman continued to pace up and down in the background.

“Your stuff has been coming on well in the studio, and I know you know every goddam song of his, so I know you can do it, but this is a big fucking ask.”

He was desperately trying to sit there, relaxed and casual, while Mickey's words poured over him. If felt like Moses receiving the word of God.

“Warm up act finishes in ten minutes, and there is sign no Johnny. He ain't coming. Would you go on for him?”

“Yeah sure,” he said.

“Excellent. The band are in the green room getting ready. Go talk to them... and thanks,” said Mickey.

He wanted to fall down at Mickey's knees and kiss his toes, and thank him that he was allowed to take over for Johnny, and cry that he wasn't worthy. Instead he merely shrugged, gestured broadly and vaguely and said “yeah, whatever man.” Then he went to the toilet and puked, then he downed a pint. Then he stumbled through what was probably the worst set he would ever do in his life, but stumble through he did. Did his best with some classic Quidlickers songs, one or two Golden Oldies just to get the crowd going. Finally, to top off the night, Gavin the guitarist gave him the nod and they all sang one of his own, and the crowd actually loved it.

It was a wonderful night, but sad it another way. Johnny Quid was never seen again apart from rumours maybe a year later that a junkie matching his description was seen trying to get into the club and caused a fight. The Quidlickers as the Quidlickers were no more, but they still had managers in the form of Roman and Mickey and they were still out to make some cash.

He was summoned one day to the recording studio after a phone call from Roman. Not for the first time he found himself disappointed that it wasn't Mickey on the other end of the phone, although he was sure where this burning desire to impress this one man in particular came from. Maybe it was the challenge, he thought. Roman was always more affable and Mickey seemed a much tougher nut to crack. Maybe it was...

“Can I get you anything, darling? Cuppa tea, water?”

June their receptionist interrupted his train of thought by leaning into his space with what he would normally class as a glorious pair of tits. Today he wanted to lock her in a cupboard and out of his face, which should have been his first indication of a problem.

“Eh yeah, water please”

June smiled and went to fetch him a bottle. There was muffled music playing from the club floor, but he could still hear the faint trace of conversation from the other side of the door to where Roman and Mickey presumably were.

“I'll just let them know you're here,” said June.

His hands were sweating, so he wiped them dry on his jeans. June went into the studio, and although he couldn't see them, he caught the non-sensical end to a snatched conversation that end once she entered.

“He's here, just so you know,” he heard her say softly.

“Cool, we'll be a couple more minutes, just let him know.”

Roman's voice.

June left the studio, and relayed the message that he'd already heard and she winked at him. He smiled and nodded as if this were news. He realised then she hadn't closed the door to the studio and he could everything they were saying.

“You still haven't answered my question so I'll say it again. You were the one who convinced me to listen to his fucking demo because it was so, and I quote “fucking good man and full of potential”. Why are you being all Doubting Thomas now? This is what we've been building him towards for fuck sake.”

“I wanna be sure.”

“Dude you're making me nervous, you're the one who's always sure about shit, and now suddenly you're not. Like, don't do this to me.”

“And you're the one fancies himself the creative one. Just tell me I'm not wrong about this kid.”

“You're not wrong about this kid. He's good. He sings like a dream, he gets on great with the band, they're happy to go with him. The crowds love him. We got more chicks coming in because of his fucking haircut then Johnny could pull. We're doing great with him. Come on man! Anyway, I thought you liked twinky little things like him.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah – wait! What? Twinky little – fuck off Roman!”

“Is that what it is? Because seriously he can be good and you can like him too, the two aren't mutually exclusive.”

“Fuck. Off. Roman. It's nothing to do with it.”

“Okay man, whatever. Are we doing this?”

“Yeah, yeah, call him in.”

He realised he was too close to the door, so he hopped up quickly and pretended to examine a painting while nonchalantly drinking his water.

“Hey Buddy,” he heard Roman say from behind him not a second later. “You wanna come in, we got some things me and Mickey want to talk to you about.”

He had gleaned two pieces of information from that stolen conversation and the knowledge that he was probably about to be offered and bigger contract was not the reason why he nearly levitated in the door to the studio.

 

~*~

 

In his head it was so easy to say. Mickey, do you want to get a drink after I'm done on stage. Mickey do you want to grab a coffee tomorrow.

Instead, every time he worked up the courage, he could never get Mickey alone, as Roman was also there, and 'do you want a cup of coffee?' turned into 'I need dry ice'. He'd even tried to send Mickey a text but had left it so vague that Mickey had misinterpreted and thought he'd wanted and meeting with him and Roman. He been left improvising and waffling and made a ludicrous request for a smoke machine for the show.

He kept trying to make an approach and kept bottling it. After the third ridiculous request, the first two of which Roman and Mickey had actually accommodated, it was becoming a bit of a farce. Mickey looked fit to murder him and all hopes seemed to be deflating like a sad balloon.

 

~*~

 

A while later was the day that Roman and Mickey disappeared for an afternoon and came back looking like they'd see the other side of hell. The whole place was abuzz with it and June was solicitously bring beer on the half hour when he finally worked up the courage to go see them.

“Mickey can I ask you something?”

“If it's a fireworks display for the show, then no, we don't have the budget and I don't think we're up to code.”

“No, it's just...,” and he stumbled into silence

Mickey rubbed his eyes tiredly and couldn't even muster annoyance. Roman looked up to the ceiling as if praying for a higher power to come rescue him.

“If it's not important kid,” said Roman “Could you just give you just give us a moment. We've had a hell of day.”

“I just wanted to... Mickey do you want to get a coffee tomorrow, just.. just you me.”

Mickey's face shot up startled. Roman looked interested.

“Just you and me,” he repeated “We could... talk, and have coffee... and talk.”

Mickey was speechless and continued to stare. He was beginning think that he'd spectacularly fucked it up again, when Roman elbowed Mickey. Mickey looked at Roman, who tossed his head and pointed with his beer. Mickey looked back at him.

“Yeah, uh, yeah that'd be cool,” said Mickey, clearly still in a state of shock.

“Cool, uh, I'll text you.”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

He got up and left, nodding at the both of them and he listened as his steps retreated from the studio door.

“Oh my God, he finally did it,” he heard Roman say with a sense of wonder.

“Fuck off Roman.”

He went and puked again. Then he got his phone out and texted.

“2pm Costa round the corner tmrw?”

“Cool. C u then,” came the reply.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Haha oh god, what am I doing! I hope you enjoy this fic. Your letter made me laugh my ass off because I saw the pairing I got, but you'd already nailed all the emotions I was feeling. As you predicted, in my arrogance, I'd put any character because I thought 'ha! I know this film like the back of my hand, I can write anyone!'. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Lol! Anyway, I'm not sure I fully nailed your prompt, but I did my best with what my brain could spew. Happy Yuletide!


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